Online payments are something all of us deal with from time to time, whether it is as consumers doing some shopping or spinning the wheel at the online casino, or as businesses selling our products and services over the internet. As the popularity of online transactions has increased, so have the options for making or receiving a payment. Let’s find out more.
Better encryption and security
Go back five years or so, and the business of making a payment online was fraught with difficulty. It was typically slow, complicated and worst of all, not particularly secure. The introduction of 128-bit encryption changed the landscape, and these days, HTTPS is rapidly becoming the norm, not just for payments but for websites in general.
The ability to conduct transactions with confidentiality and security served to increase consumer confidence. Not only did this create a surge in more people conducting online transactions, it also led to a wider range of companies joining the fray, and offering better, faster and more cost effective ways to transfer money.
One industry in which this has had a particularly profound effect has been the online casino and sports betting sector.
Online payments and the casino market
Unless you have been living in a cave, you will have noticed that online casinos have become big business over the past couple of years. More are opening up practically every day – the casino database at https://www.thecasinodb.com gives a flavour of just how many players there are in this hugely competitive and rapidly growing market.
There are two payment issues that can be major constraints in this sector, and the sites that can navigate and overcome them best can achieve a significant competitive advantage.
1. Speed – whether it is a game of blackjack or a bet on the horses, gamblers want to be able to transfer money to their betting account and withdraw their winnings quickly. Traditional bank transfers can take a matter of days.
2. International transfers – US visitors can be stymied by something called the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act. This throws up the interesting challenge of prohibiting US banks from transferring funds to and from online casinos. So while American citizens are permitted to log on and gamble, they can find it a real challenge to get any funds in or out of their online casino account.
What are the solutions?
• Paypal is straightforward to use, highly secure and transactions are completed instantly. It is an acceptable payment method in many casinos. The downsides? It follows the rules of wherever you are located – so no help to Americans unless they live in one of the few states where online gambling is allowed in-state. It also charges a small fee per transaction.
• Neteller has become the most popular payment method for online casinos. It’s fast, it’s safe and you can use it just about everywhere. Except, of course, for the US, from which it had a high profile departure.
• Bitcoin is the perfect solution for American gamblers. The crypto currency is completely anonymous and there are no transaction fees to worry about. As a relatively new innovation, this payment method is not accepted everywhere, but the list of Bitcoin casinos is growing at a rapid rate.
